What is Salish-Shidhe like? Options

[thepatriot]

From a sociology standpoint, this is *fascinating*, but not that useful for most games. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I believe that the spirit of this thread is to figure out atmosphere for the I-5 corridor through SSC. It's about a 7-hour drive, so there would be a stop or two. I'm ALL about fleshing out the RP.

[Cheops]

the smallest population are those with no native ancestry at all who weren't kicked out. Note that the NAN have "Reservations" of Americans that were too stubborn to leave and weren't worth the effort to roust.

Not in Vancouver, British Columbia. Today we are 51% "visible minorities." Due to Lisa Smedman being a local historian and writing the "Tails you Lose" novel the SR version of Vancouver is still just as cosmopolitan as it is today. This means that the SSC pretty much left Vancouver alone in terms of conducting business.

As I mentioned I can see the SSC being VERY lenient in terms of who is "native" and who is "anglo." Maybe you have to be full blood to sit on a chair in Bellingham but the non-blooded population likely would have been willing to aid the SAIM cause which means that the NAN would have had to make large concessions during the War. It also means that the PacNorWest would have one of the most inclusive (Tir excepted) system in the NAN -- which fits pretty well with modern sensibilities of the area.

[hobgoblin]

Heading out into the wild outdoors may also open up for the real crazy that is SR. Think awakened fauna, complete with teeth and claws that much of humanity has not faced since the development of gunpowder.

[pbangarth]

Not in Vancouver, British Columbia. Today we are 51% "visible minorities."

Heh. Yeah, which means there really is no 'majority' at all.

[CanadianWolverin...]

Some very hot (see: attractive / "exotic") people in Vancouver (BC), I am willing to bet a ton of mixed "race" people ended up turning metahuman, elf particularly but I wouldn't rule out being such a eclectic mix was why what became the SSC has a lot of sympathy not only for telling Ottawa and Washington (DC) to frag off in the Resource Rush and camps but also when meta-humanity started popping up all over the place it probably got more than its fair share of metahuman kids. We still remember the Japanese camps from WWII around here and a lot of people of Japanese descent were close friends with First Nations people and the Residential schools were not as distant a memory as we would like...

Something I think is really interesting in Shadowrun is that for international shipping, they could steer completely clear of SSC if they wanted, take the northern passage depending on how you port of call registration flag flies with TPA or go through California and only have to deal with the PCC with more and better highways at a shorter distance with higher populated markets. Going through a SCC or Seatle UCAS port would mean the drone trucks have to pass through more mountains and more NAN member states, some of whom are on way more high alert and less business "friendly" than the PCC and the TPA who might be getting rich off of things being a little less frozen after the initial screw job that would give enviroment and economy there. I wouldn't be surprised if there were border skirmishes and trade disputes brewing between NAN member states as well, especially for the SSC in this particular situation, the economic policies of the Tir, AMC, and especially the Sioux could be kicking their asses.

I wonder, did UCAS anticipate California trying to go Indy or not? If they did holding on to Seattle would make more sense to me but otherwise, why bother?

Man, I really enjoyed reading "Tails You Lose", Lisa Smedman did good with that. She's a nice person to email and thank for her writing.

[hobgoblin]

Best i can tell, California has always been a bit odd compared to its neighbors. And when said neighbors because nations in its own right, with border patrols and whatsnot, going solo may be more tempting than when one have free passage to various other places when one want to get away.

Anyways, this is a setting that was clearly written up more as a rule of cool setting than need social/political coherence. So in that sense, i suspect Seattle got what it got mostly to provide some kind of cold war Berlin place to operate out of. Only later did the various surroundings take any kind of coherent form beyond the opening description of SR1.

Only as the audience aged as the need for coherent events taken shape.

[Cheops]

So in that sense, i suspect Seattle got what it got mostly to provide some kind of cold war Berlin place to operate out of. Only later did the various surroundings take any kind of coherent form beyond the opening description of SR1.

Only as the audience aged as the need for coherent events taken shape.

Problem is that they then introduced Denver as the Berlin of North America -- until they ruined it in Year of the Comet. Seattle really serves no purpose to anyone. In fact, metaplot-wise there is really only 1 big event that happens there: the Shutdown.

You can solve this problem by allowing "corridors" in and out. So a shipment could land in Seattle, clear customs, and then load onto a tube train that doesn't stop until it gets to Illinois. Doesn't have to clear SSC and Sioux customs. This is a similar concept to cold war Berlin -- the allies had specific air corridors to reach the city and if they strayed they would be intercepted. Presumably this is how SR Denver works otherwise it would be a bitch for some of the nations to get there.

[Nath]

I wonder, did UCAS anticipate California trying to go Indy or not? If they did holding on to Seattle would make more sense to me but otherwise, why bother?

California seceded eighteen years after the Denver Treaty, after the 2029 Crash, the first Eurowar and the Confederate secession. If anybody in the Jarman administration foresaw that happening, that would pure luck, not some political hindsight.

The explanation can be as simple as Boeing company being a major contractor of the US armed forces and federal agencies during the Ghost Dance War as well as a big funding sources for leading political figures. Boeing could have had reasons to fear an Amerindian control of Seattle would cause the company fall.

So in that sense, i suspect Seattle got what it got mostly to provide some kind of cold war Berlin place to operate out of.

Problem is that they then introduced Denver as the Berlin of North America -- until they ruined it in Year of the Comet. Seattle really serves no purpose to anyone. In fact, metaplot-wise there is really only 1 big event that happens there: the Shutdown.

Vienna could have been a better Cold War comparison, albeit less famous. This is not about city that is divided, but a city were opposing forces were on equal grounds: western and communist spies in Berlin and Vienna, Japanese and North American corporations in Seattle.

[hobgoblin]

Well i was thinking more that Berlin during the cold war was a island of the west inside the east.

[CanadianWolverin...]

California seceded eighteen years after the Denver Treaty, after the 2029 Crash, the first Eurowar and the Confederate secession. If anybody in the Jarman administration foresaw that happening, that would pure luck, not some political hindsight.

The explanation can be as simple as Boeing company being a major contractor of the US armed forces and federal agencies during the Ghost Dance War as well as a big funding sources for leading political figures. Boeing could have had reasons to fear an Amerindian control of Seattle would cause the company fall.

If that is the simple explanation, I wonder why it wasn't applied to a great deal many of other places in the NAN member state's regions. But that is the joy of fiction that plays around with the IRL world (up to a point) as its sand box, I don't have a objection with it being, just wonder what the story possibilities - so if that reason is good enough to fight for Seattle in the treaty but not other places, that would be interesting and who knows, maybe even a hook for a run (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Drace]

Watch First Blood (Rambo 1). It is filmed and set in Oregon. The unreasonable hatred the sheriff has for Mr. John J can easily be ported over to a group of SR anglos travelling in "indian country".

Is it bad that the only thing I can add to this whole topic really is that First Blood was actually filmed in BC. For the most part in Hope (small city near/almost part of Vancouver), and also in North Vancouver, Pitt Meadows and a few other locations. So that movie would do great for a visual setting.

[Snow_Fox]

Watch First Blood (Rambo 1). It is filmed and set in Oregon. The unreasonable hatred the sheriff has for Mr. John J can easily be ported over to a group of SR anglos travelling in "indian country".

I assume that you are looking for information on what the small backwoods areas are like. For the big cities like Vancouver, Boise, Bellingham, Kelowna, Kamloops, Spokane, etc you can probably just go to their tourism websites. As a Vancouverite I can tell you that we are fairly different than someone from the island (Victoria) or the interior (Kamloops). If you find any photos of Merritt, BC I'd hold that up as a good example of backwoods and Native heavy. The Nicola Valley is full of reservations.

That's probably the best link but only for white people. It's never been clear how the NAN would feel about Asian tourists. potentially black people -fellow sufferers of oppression or hispnaics- really a NAN base with other groups worked in. The Seattle licence plates would be a give away.

For the terrain there wouldn't be any real change than today, think of small towns, back roads and lots of trees.

Bare in mind that by 2073 the GGW is 40 plus years in the past. A great many younger NAN's were born after the war, after liberation. They might not have the same prejudices, the way many modern Vietnamese don't hate Americans. They were born after the war was won.

[CanadianWolverin...]

In my experience, and going by the SSC attitude towards meta-humanity, they would be quite friendly with people of asian descent and so forth. I've know Japanese students who came and lived with a family here when it was still a rez and many years later with the recent earthquake and tsunami they were very concerned for their "brother" in Japan. Plus, a great deal of what used to be large population centers, especially Vancouver, BC, they and others are a considerable demographic.

When it comes the SSC, I think the biggest problems you are going to have with regards to where you come from will happen at the border. Beyond that its probably the usual "stupid tourists not reading signs" thing that seems to happen everywhere but in 2072 I bet its a case of expecting a wireless tech AR sign and passing the actual sign that may still be on wired tech or magically inclined right by - Rangers on a search for some idiot lost in the woods again but after 48 hours they probably just looking for the remains of some para-animal or regular animal's meal.

[Tzeentch]

In my experience, and going by the SSC attitude towards meta-humanity, they would be quite friendly with people of asian descent and so forth.

-- I don't see how that is relevant when it's clear from the canon that "anglo" was a general term that basically meant "non Native." Of course, I think some people are overplaying the NAN discrimination like it's supposed to be a reversal of 1950s America with Anglo/Native fountains and anti-miscenigation laws. Even the biased old sources (NAN Nations volumes 1/2) don't go that far, even at the eye-rolling "role reversal" parts like anglo reservations.

-- Assuming the SSC is still anything like I was thinking of when I wrote it in SONA, the biggest issues in the nation are intragroup between the politically dominant coastal and marginalized inland groups. Agriculture would be the biggest industry in most of the SSC, but that's hardly fitting for "back to the roots" purists who were never sedentary (or even more interesting, were not very nomadic until the introduction of the horse). Agriculture and resource extraction are also not sexy in Shadowrun (where the economy runs on magic pixy dust and dreams) so everyone is going to focus on Vancouver, Gaiatronics, issues with Tsimshian, and other sexy stuff the authors either are more familiar with or can look up on Wikipedia (because let's face it, you're not going to get a good feel for Spokane from a quick Google search).

-- My personal feel is that the SSC is conservative, with a serious lack of internal cohesion (as I've mentioned before, most tribes in the SSC are not Salish for one rather obvious issue) and highly regionalized cultures that are jealous of their independence -- treating the SSC as more of a loose federation makes the most sense IMO with the canon presentation (e.g. the Cascade smugglers).

-- The Smedman stuff doesn't add much of interest I think. The material I saw on the Tsmishian-Salish war (did that get published?) was horrifyingly bad and I did my best to downplay that in the text. It made Mass Effect: Deception look like War and Peace..